Which Image Format Should You Use? JPG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF Explained

April 16, 2025 · 13 min read

Somewhere in the world right now, someone is saving a photo as PNG “because it is higher quality” and their web page is loading at the speed of a carrier pigeon. Somewhere else, someone is using JPEG for a logo with transparency and wondering why the transparent background turned white. And a third person is reading an article about AVIF being the future and wondering if they are supposed to stop using everything else immediately.

Image formats are not complicated if someone explains them properly. The problem is that most explanations are either too technical (color space subsampling ratios) or too vague (just use WebP for everything). Let me try to hit the middle ground.

By the end of this article you will know exactly which format to use for any situation, and more importantly, why. Let us go format by format.

JPEG (JPG): The Workhorse

JPEG has been around since 1992 and it is still the most widely used image format on the internet. It is the default output of basically every digital camera. It is supported by every device, every browser, every application, every service that has ever displayed an image.

JPEG uses lossy compression, which means it throws away some information to make the file smaller. The amount of information it throws away is controlled by the quality setting. At quality 100, very little is discarded and files are large. At quality 20, a lot is discarded and files are small but the image looks like it was rendered on a potato.

The sweet spot for photos is quality 80 to 85. At this level, the compression artifacts are invisible to most people at normal viewing distances. The file size is typically 60 to 80% smaller than quality 100. Going below 70 starts to show noticeable degradation, especially around sharp edges and text.

When to use JPEG

Photos. Always. Landscapes, portraits, product shots, food photography, travel pictures. Anything with lots of complex colors and gradients. JPEG was literally designed for photographs and it is still great at them.

Blog images, social media posts, hero images on websites. Any photograph on any web page. Email images (because WebP is not supported in email clients). Any situation where universal compatibility matters more than absolutely optimal file size.

When NOT to use JPEG

Anything with transparency. JPEG does not support transparency at all. The transparent areas turn white (or whatever background color your graphics software uses). If you need transparency, you need PNG, WebP, or AVIF.

Logos, icons, and graphics with sharp edges and flat colors. JPEG compression creates artifacts around sharp edges (called “ringing”), which makes text and line art look blurry and messy. A logo saved as JPEG at any quality level will look worse than the same logo as PNG.

Screenshots with text. Text in JPEG gets the same ringing artifacts as logos. If your screenshot has small text, JPEG will make it blurry. Use PNG.

PNG: The Accurate One

PNG uses lossless compression. This means every single pixel is preserved exactly as it was. No information is discarded. What you put in is what you get out. This makes PNG ideal for images where accuracy matters.

PNG also supports transparency (alpha channel). This is why every logo, icon, sticker, and overlay graphic on the internet is a PNG. When you need an image that can sit on top of any background without a white box around it, PNG is the answer.

The downside: file sizes. Because PNG does not throw away any data, files can be much larger than JPEG for the same image. A photo saved as PNG can easily be 5 to 10 times larger than the same photo as JPEG with no visible quality difference. This is pure waste.

When to use PNG

Logos and brand graphics. Transparency support plus lossless quality means your logo looks pixel perfect on any background. Icons and UI elements for the same reason.

Screenshots, especially of code, text, or user interfaces. The lossless compression preserves the sharp edges of text perfectly. Screenshots with text should almost always be PNG.

Any graphic with flat colors, sharp edges, and limited color palette. Diagrams, charts, infographics, illustrations with solid colors. PNG handles these efficiently because lossless compression works great on images with large areas of the same color.

When NOT to use PNG

Photos. Never use PNG for photographs. The file size will be enormous for zero quality benefit. Your 4000 x 3000 photo that is 1.2MB as JPEG will be 12MB as PNG and look identical. Do not do this.

Any image that will be displayed on the web where file size matters and the image is a photograph. Which is most images on most websites. If it is a photo, use JPEG or WebP.

WebP: The Modern Default

WebP was created by Google in 2010 and it took about a decade for browser support to become universal. Now it is supported everywhere: Chrome, Firefox, Safari (since 2020), Edge, all mobile browsers. You can safely use WebP on the open web.

WebP offers both lossy and lossless compression. Lossy WebP produces files about 25 to 35% smaller than JPEG at the same visual quality. Lossless WebP produces files about 25% smaller than PNG. It also supports transparency and animation. It is basically JPEG and PNG and GIF combined into one format that is better at all three.

When to use WebP

Everywhere on the web. In 2025, WebP should be your default format for web images. Photos, graphics, icons, everything. If you are building a website and need to pick one format, pick WebP.

Anywhere file size matters and you control the platform. Personal websites, blogs, web apps, progressive web apps. The file size savings over JPEG are significant at scale. A site with 50 images saves roughly 30% of bandwidth by switching from JPEG to WebP.

When NOT to use WebP

Email. Email clients (especially Outlook) do not support WebP. Use JPEG or PNG for email images.

Print workflows. Most print software expects TIFF, PDF, or JPEG. WebP is not a print format. Do not send WebP files to your printer.

When you need maximum compatibility with legacy systems. If your content might be consumed by very old software or niche devices, JPEG is safer. But this is increasingly rare.

AVIF: The Future (Already Here, Mostly)

AVIF is based on the AV1 video codec and produces even smaller files than WebP. We are talking 30 to 50% smaller than JPEG at equivalent quality. The quality at low bitrates is remarkable. Images that would be a blocky mess in JPEG look smooth and clean in AVIF.

Browser support is good and growing: Chrome (since 2020), Firefox (since 2021), Safari (since 2023 on macOS Ventura). The main holdout was Safari but it is on board now. About 95% of global browser traffic supports AVIF.

The downside: encoding is slow. Creating an AVIF file takes significantly more CPU time than creating a JPEG or WebP. For automated pipelines that process thousands of images, this matters. For manually preparing a few blog images, it does not. Decoding (displaying) is fast, so viewers are not affected.

When to use AVIF

Progressive enhancement on the web. Serve AVIF to browsers that support it, fall back to WebP or JPEG for those that do not. The HTML picture element handles this elegantly with source tags for each format.

Bandwidth sensitive applications. If your users are on slow connections (mobile in developing markets, for example), AVIF gives them the best quality at the smallest file size.

When NOT to use AVIF

As your only format without fallbacks. That 5% of browsers that do not support AVIF will show a broken image. Always provide a JPEG or WebP fallback.

Email, print, and offline documents. Same as WebP: these ecosystems do not support AVIF.

GIF: Mostly for Memes Now

GIF supports animation, which is why it survived decades past its technical prime. The format is limited to 256 colors, uses lossless compression, and produces enormous files relative to the quality. A 5 second GIF can easily be 5 to 10MB. The same animation as a video (MP4 or WebM) would be 500KB.

For static images, there is never a reason to use GIF in 2025. PNG does everything GIF does but better. For animations, consider using a video format instead. If you must use GIF (chat apps, forums, platforms that do not support video), keep them short and small. Our meme generator outputs PNG stills which are usually more sharing friendly anyway.

SVG: The Vector Format

SVG is fundamentally different from everything above. It is not pixels. It is math. SVG files contain instructions for drawing shapes, lines, and curves. Because of this, SVG images scale to any size without losing quality. A 1KB SVG logo looks crisp on a phone screen and a billboard.

Use SVG for logos, icons, simple illustrations, and any graphic that needs to work at multiple sizes. Do not use SVG for photographs (it cannot represent complex photographic data efficiently). Convert SVG to PNG when you need a raster version using our SVG to PNG tool.

HEIC: The iPhone Format

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is Apple's default photo format on iPhones. It uses the same compression as HEVC video and produces files about 50% smaller than JPEG. The quality is excellent.

The problem: compatibility. Windows, Android, and many web services do not handle HEIC well. If you take photos on an iPhone and need to share them widely, convert to JPEG or WebP first. Our HEIC to JPG converter does this without uploading your photos anywhere.

The Decision Flowchart

The Bottom Line

If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this: JPEG for photos, PNG for graphics with sharp edges or transparency, WebP for everything on the web if you can. AVIF for extra savings with fallbacks. SVG for anything that needs to scale. GIF only if nothing else works.

Format choice is not a quality dial. Choosing PNG does not make your photo “higher quality” than JPEG. It just makes the file five times bigger for no visible improvement. Every format has a job. Use the right tool for the right job and your images will be smaller, faster, and look exactly the same or better.

And if you need to convert between any of these formats, our image converter handles all of them in your browser. No upload, no account, no nonsense. Just drop, convert, download.